On Saturday my good friend Misti, and I had the chance to go to the Brad Paisley concert at Cricket Pavilion. A while back we made our own shirts and then we eventually purchased the same clothing. We were very matchy matchy. Misti's dad lives about 5 miles away from the arena, so we went to his house and had him drop us off at the concert. I was so grateful for that, because I did not want to deal with the traffic.
The gates opened at 4 and we really had a whole lot of nothing to do. There was a smaller stage that other singers performed on. It was so blasted hot! We were miserable. The small stage was set in a parking lot and the heat radiating off the tar was ridiculous. We even had little fans that were not cooling us off. We eventually went and sat on some grass. It was 5x cooler on the grass (go figure). We enjoyed some people watching, and let me tell ya- there are some interesting people at concerts! I ran into 3 people I knew. A kid from band, My friend Christina (from band), and an old church friend, Clayton. I run into someone I know every where I go. It's crazy. Well after we had a snack, and hit up the restrooms, we happened to be right by the KMLE country booth. They announced a hula hoop contest to go meet Darius Rucker back stage. I was excited! I love hula hooping. I received my hula hoop, did some practice rounds and I had people supporting me right away. As the contest began (this is out of 20 people btw), some dropped their hula hoops right away. Willy D Loon- the morning DJ- had his attention on me and a little girl that was in the middle of the crowd. After what felt like 2 minutes, there were 7 of us left that were still hula hooping. To made the challenge a bit harder, they gave us 2 hula hoops!! So as we started again, 5/7 people dropped theirs within the first few seconds. It was me and a little 6 year old who were the last ones standing and we both won the tickets to go meet Darius! It.was.Awesome!! That little girl was amazing with her hula hoop. Misti was my guard at the beginning. As I was hula hooping, some guy was about to walk into me and she stuck her arm out and slapped the guy against his chest and basically yelled (not mean) at him to not get in the way. Then another lady was like "she's hula hooping, can't you see!" I was grateful for my guards watching my back. I would have been ticked if someone messed me up!
Here I am after winning. The girl was giving me instructions. Yes I had to pose for the camera!
Here I am with Willy D. Loon. He was super nice! It's awesome when people are real in life as they sound on radio. Not fake nice .
here we are waiting for our chance to go meet Darius. There was a group of people for this meet and greet. We were not able to get an autograph, but a picture was good enough.
Here is Darius Rucker himself! He was super nice as well. His performance was awesome as well.
After our meet and greet, we went to go find our seats. I am so glad we were not on the lawn. Whoever designed the pavilion is smart, because there were huge fans above us and finally we cooled down completely. The concert didn't start til 7:30. Justin Moore performed first, followed by Darius and then Brad Paisley. I didn't know many of Justin's songs. "Small Town USA" was the only one I knew.
Here is Justin Moore. I guess he is a new rising country star.
Darius Rucker was great! I don't know much of his stuff. Okay, well I didn't know maybe 2 songs he sang. He even sang some of Hootie and the Blowfish stuff! That was pretty cool. The only down part I felt was that he didn't enunciate the words clearly.
Brad was A-MAZING! He is so incredibly talented. I love being able to sing a long with most of his songs. I didn't know 2 of them, but he performed for an hour and a half. It was incredible. He even made his way through the crowd, while playing his guitar crazy fast, and set himself up on a seat in front of the lawn guests. He expressed his desire to play for them, because when he was younger, he could only afford the lawn seats, so he wanted to come out to them. I though that was very cool! He sang "whiskey lullaby" and Alison Krauss came out to do the duet. There's a good chance her image was a broadcast, but it looked legit. I love that song, and I didn't think he would perform it if she wasn't there. Brad also joked around with the crowd and would incorporate Arizona or Phoenix into his songs.
During his song "I'm still a guy" he stopped to talk to us for a minute. He asked the girls if they like a manly man. Ones who could win a bar fight for you. The girl went crazy screaming their support. then he asked the girls if they liked a man who would watch Grey's Anatomy and Dancing with the stars and want to discuss it afterwards. Again the girls were screaming in approval. Then he said " ladies let me tell you something. You can't have both! A man who watches Greys Anatomy or DWTS, he won't win that bar fight." It was hilarious!
After it was all done, Misti's dad came back to pick us up. We were out of that arena in 2 minutes! I again was so grateful that we were not in that traffic!! I had such a great time at the concert. I love concerts and people watching.
